Philly star Cole Hamel's wife Heidi Strobel talks intelligence and posing for Playboy

Heidi Strobel is blonde, gorgeous, smart and the wife of Philly's starting pitcher, Cole Hamel. And with her new baby boy being born today, add hot mom to the list.

Strobel gave birth to the couple's first child and stirred things up on the mound when the delivery was announced at 5:11 pm - During Game 2 of the NL Division series between the Phillies and Colorado.

But this baseball blondie is used to stressful times and being opportunist, will surely enjoy recanting the tale of her baby's birth during daddy's big game.

Heidi first came into the spotlight when she appeared on the hit TV show, Survivor: The Amazon, where Heidi and fellow castaway Jenna Morasca dropped their drawers in a jiffy for peanut butter and Oreo cookies.

The instance lended them not only a tasty snack, but a chance to pose nude in Playboy - To which they happily obliged.

Fellow Phillies Baseball Examiner, Patrick Gallen, interviewed "The First Lady of the Phillies" on her image since posing for Playboy, giving Heidi a chance to clear the air on her smarts, her charm and her health during the show (shown below, right).

“Actually, I got really, really sick from Survivor, which is what got me more involved. But Survivor put me in a different position where I had kidney failure, I lost all of my hair, I weighed 72 pounds; it was awful," Heidi told Gallen.

When asked how things played out for her post-Amazon, Heidi seemed amused by how surprised folks were at her spread in Playboy.

"Most people were shocked, and if you had met me, you would never think I’d have done Playboy," Heidi said.

Strobel, a graduate from Drury University, is the proud recipient of a BA degree in exercise physiology, secondary education and physical education. Since leaving Survivor and marrying the man of her dreams (enter Cole Hamels), Heidi has since begun work on a master's degree in physical education at West Chester University.

"The only thing Playboy has done is change people’s perception of me. They think that you’re not educated, you’re not smart, and you’re a dumb blonde. But it was a great experience."

She added, "I’m not trying to degrade it by any means, but people don’t like to think that anyone intelligent is capable of doing something like Playboy. But Playboy is something that was an amazing opportunity in my life; I was younger! It was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of deal."

To read the full interview, click here.

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